Support from readers like you keeps The Journal open.
You are visiting us because we have something you value. Independent, unbiased news that tells the truth. Advertising revenue goes some way to support our mission, but this year it has not been enough.
If you've seen value in our reporting, please contribute what you can, so we can continue to produce accurate and meaningful journalism. For everyone who needs it.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
Shutterstock/Semmick Photo
The Daily Poll
Do you think an all-Ireland Citizens' Assembly should be established to discuss Irish unity?
Sinn Féin has argued that the possibility of a united Ireland must be prepared for.
8.21pm, 13 Feb 2019
29.9k
112
The Joint Committee on Public Petitions met today to consider a petition calling for the establishment of an all-Ireland Citizens’ Assembly to discuss the potential for unity.
The petitioner suggests that this proposed assembly would draft an all-Ireland referendum on the question.
Advertisement
Since the Brexit vote, there has been much discussion about the possibility of a border poll being advanced.
In light of this, we want to know what you think.
Do you think an all-Ireland Citizens’ Assembly should be established to discuss the potential for Irish unity?
Poll Results:
Yes (7196)
No (2995)
I don't know (368)
Readers like you are keeping these stories free for everyone...
A mix of advertising and supporting contributions helps keep paywalls away from valuable information like this article.
Over 5,000 readers like you have already stepped up and support us with a monthly payment or a once-off donation.
This is YOUR comments community. Stay civil, stay constructive, stay on topic.
Please familiarise yourself with our comments policy
here
before taking part.
Sent a lengthy letter years ago to Kallogs detailing my outrage and tremendous dissapointment at finding a black rice Krispy in my box of rice krispies. I carefully packaged it in cotton wool within a match box and posted it off expecting a collection of Kallogs products in return as compensation. Some smart ass sent back a lovely letter apologising for my experience and included a ‘replacement rice krispy’ in the same match box I’d sent.
I was followed around Penneys the other day by the security guard. He was practically resting his head on my shoulder he was that close to me, it was so uncomfortable.
I complained to a manager, only to later overhear her saying I both looked and acted like ‘a weirdo’. Her face was a picture when she realised I had heard her. So not really a great outcome from my complaint . . .
Surprise surprise I made one about Vodafone. This however was after endless phone calls and two unanswered registered letters to their customer service team (as per their instructions on The Vodafone website).
Lost my patience with them and complained to ComReg which resulted in Vodafone releasing me from my contract 8 months early!
Same thing for me with Eircom, I actually couldn’t believe the things their customer service came up with the try and claim they were in the right. After about 6 weeks of trying to sort it through Eircom’s customer service (which I was obliged to do under ComReg’s rules for when they can intervene) I went to ComReg who managed to clear the whole mess up in about 2 days.
Our internet was down for 7 days following a storm.. Vodafone wouldnt refund the week.. Rang Comreg who told me they wouldnt get involved in getting refunds
A few years ago Vodafone introduced a range of cost saving measures which included redundancies and outsourcing their customer service to companies in the North and abroad. Up until then they prided themselves on the quality of their service, but not now it would seem.
I have had some terrible service from them in the last few years which included 3 high level complaints, 2 of which were dealt with satisfactorily after I made the complaint.
I hope that this report going public makes them rethink their customer service. They still have the best network which makes it hard to leave them. But just pray you never need to deal with them relating to a problem, empathy doesn’t seem to be in their vocabulary anymore.
I’ve an issue with dunnes at the moment and the parent child parking. It’s not regulated at all. In the UK it’s a bye law but not here. Anyone can park in the parent child parking space and there’s nothing anyone can do about it. I’ve two small kids and find the spaces taken up by people with no kids. Customer service is useless and treat you like your the problem. Not happy with dunnes stores at all. I don’t shop there now cos they can’t provide a safe environment.
The last time I was in dunnes in Carlow someone pulled straight into a mother and baby spot! Security guard 10ft away reading his magazines as usual. I rarely go because they have the most unhelpful and unfriendly staff.
When to Dunnes in the ilac had a browse and then went to the customer toilets, there was a woman attacking people buggies, pensioners over 20¢ Dunnes days a numbered in my mind. I support buying irish where competitive but Dunnes seems to be stuck in a time warp when it comes to customer service.
A few years back I found a stone inside a packet of crisps, I made a complaint to them and within a day or two a rep came around to the house with a massive box of goodies and an official apology letter with a €5 voucher.
Where can you complain to when customers are downright rude and abusive to you… All well and dandy complaining about a service but staff dealing with the public deserve medals. Ive came across far more situations where ignorant people in the wrong were rude to staff than times I’ve got bad service….
I took a case against Vodafone after four months of being given the run around. Within two days of recieving the confirmation letter of the case Vodafone Head office manager rang and case was resolved.
Complained to the fsai when I got a sandwich in subway and I noticed something weird looking cooked into the bread. It was sent of to be tested and turned out to be a lump of fibre glass
Well the fsai said they’d be following them up about it and I could have paid something like €120 to get the report sent to me so I could take legal proceedings. I didn’t bother, I was happy as long as the fsai were gonna do something about it so that it wouldn’t happen again
In america they have the bettee business bureau so consumers can complain and the company is investigated and can be fined or shut down etc. We need that here.
Complained twice to Irish rail. Once about rude staff. Once about their ticket machine not being able to find a reservation but still charging me for it. Never even received a reply to the first one, and the second one was handled terribly. Irish Rail, you still owe me 70 euro!
Officially complained about AIB a couple of times, but never got anywhere. Never realised a bank could actually provide good customer service until I moved to the UK.
Aib are utterly useless. Complained to them recently. Got a call back to be told they couldn’t help me and I’d have to call into a branch. Then when I called into a branch they took me over to the corner and put me on the phone. recently complained to a bank here in the UK. Great. They even gave me a tenner to compensate me for my half an hour on the phone.
I made a complaint to the financial ombudsman about how a member of credit card company MBNA treated me on the phone. The investigation took almost six months to complete but the ombudsman found in my favour & MBNA had to pay me €100 compensation. I felt vindicated! :)
Must try that…. Three have to be the worst company I’ve ever had the pleasure of paying over thousands too!!!! They are a disgrace, completely ignore the law of the land and make up their own rules
Any advice for when they are sending the debt collectors after me, they are trying to tell me I spent €173 in less than 14 hours,I’m the only one that was using it and they couldn’t tell me if it was used watching movies,downloading etc…
I think the best thing is pen and paper to head office or the CEO, head of customer services. Calling customer care is like banging your head against a brick wall. If you’ve a new contract less that 30 days or something you might be able to pull out now from it ( or use that as leverage). I wrote to them a couple of times ( The second time was about the phone call I got after the first letter). HATE THREE TRAPPED in a contract.
I made a complaint once about irish rail. They advertised tickets for €9.99 but you could only buy them online and had to pay €2 or €3 booking fee to use a credit card. It bugged me a lot, and normally I wouldn’t be bothered with it but I thought a 30% difference was major plus I just wanted to find out if I could avoid the fee somehow. Irish rail said I just had to pay the fee and that was that and the fee wasn’t part of the ticket price. The was no way to get around the fee so I thought they were wrong to advertise it as €9.99. Anyway when I made a complaint they replied with a line from the Irish rail t&c that didn’t address the issue at all. Some fella in the office didn’t even bother to look into it from what it looked like. In the end I learned to drive.
Took Curry’s to the small claims court over a fridge that kept breaking down, both before and after the warranty expired. Once the warranty was up they didn’t want to know me. Got a full refund and they had to take it away.
I’m trigger happy about reporting Irish companies for spamming and I’ve done it many times.
I also like to report adverts that annoy me, for whatever reason, to the ASA, the reporting adverts is more for my own amusement though, because I always get very nice letters off them telling me they are unable to act upon my complaint.
Email has made complaining so much easier. It’s wonderful.
be careful of the boy who cried wolf syndrom . you will one day have a real complaint that won;t be taken seriously, presuming your comment is serious in the first place .
Went into the local centra and bought a ready made sandwich which was in date, and this is what it was like when I opened it…. The bread was actually rock hard it was that stale… And well… Just look.I went in and complained and got a huge apology and some hot food in return. http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=nvd554&s=8#.U9deiaA1gm8
@ Sol & Andy, the parking you refer to is not ‘mother and baby’ exclusively.
The parking is not exclusively for ‘parents and children’ either.
The parking is for children and their guardians.
Also, the guardian / driver does not have to have the kids with them at the time of parking.
An example would be where a driver drops off a mother and infants to a shopping centre.
The driver vacates the parking spot but returns a while later to pick up the group….are they not entitled to park in the same type designated parking bay?
I complained to RTÉ about practically promoting torture when Philip Boucher Hayes in the Pat Kenny Show interviewed the very bat shit crazy Michael Hayden former CIA director. They casually discussed torture, something I believe is illegal in Ireland, right? I have not received a satisfactory response from RTÉ or PBH to date.
Made one with Cornmarket insurance, well I asked about the process. I’m still waiting on my call back one week later. Nightmare to deal with, unless it’s the sales department of cousre.
Called eircom over there services before, only to be told a hidden gem from a wise person on there little help desk
according to this person…you can browse the internet while not having internet.. so all this time i didnt need internet to browse the internet!
I just hung up the phone on that one never going to bother them considering there number one excuse is “we checked the line at our end and didnt find a problem”..
I have complained formally only when initial queries with staff have been handled badly.
Hand in hand with that behaviour comes the responsibility to be fair & point out when staff/ products have been of a high quality.
I have worked in hotels, restaurants & now in front of a class of students and really appreciate it when someone gives constructive or positive feedback, I try to pass it on when I can.
Years ago I won a free bottle of coke. You unscrewed the kid and underneath you might win a free bottle. Anyway the shop refused to give me a free one so I complained to their head office and they sent me out 2 free bottles and 2 coke keyrings in a small parcel.
I gave a bottle to my mate and we both opened at the same time. The bottles had been so shook up the erupted like a volcano soaking both of us.
Damn you coke and your sugary revenge.
yes i have complained but only if i have good reason as i think i did in this case, , an bord gais charged me twice what they should have done on an estimated bill , the bill came to 392 euro . i live on my own and my bill is normally no more then 150 euro . after seeing the high price i did a meter reading and called it in by phone . when i got the revised bill it was as usual under 150 euro . yes i did ring them and point out i was overcharged by at least 153 euros . they did apologize to give them their due and no harm was done in the long run but my dad is in a nursing home and there was a bit of stress floating abiut at that time , if i had not had the time to query the bill i could have been way over charged . it is not difficult to look back at the last few bills and charge me according to the amount on them , if they under charge me they can add it on to the next bill ,
I made an official complaint about Quinn Insurance a few years back about a tv/radio ad, and they had to change the ad. You could never have had the requirements that they had stated to get the cheaper insurance
@ Sol & Andy, the parking you refer to is not ‘mother and baby’ exclusively.
The parking is not exclusively for ‘parents and children’ either.
The parking is for children and their guardians.
Also, the guardian / driver does not have to have the kids with them at the time of parking.
An example would be where a driver drops off a mother and infants to a shopping centre.
The driver vacates the parking spot but returns a while later to pick up the same group….are they not entitled to park in the same type designated parking bay?
I wonder if I am the only that has been caught out by Tesco’s pricing of certain goods, when I went to the checkout to pay for my purchases, I was told that I hadn’t enough money to pay for the items (clothing).When I checked the price on the labels I discovered that price was displayed in sterling (in large print) and the €euro price was displayed much smaller. I should have brought a magnifying glass. I wish the Consumer Watchdog would sniff out this anomaly.
Richard Satchwell found guilty of the murder of his wife Tina Satchwell in 2017
5 hrs ago
27.6k
Northern Gaza
UN warns all of Gaza at risk of famine as far-right Israeli minister calls for 'full force'
4 hrs ago
7.9k
United Arab Emirates
Kinahan gang figure Sean McGovern lands in Dublin ahead of court appearance
23 hrs ago
53.9k
Your Cookies. Your Choice.
Cookies help provide our news service while also enabling the advertising needed to fund this work.
We categorise cookies as Necessary, Performance (used to analyse the site performance) and Targeting (used to target advertising which helps us keep this service free).
We and our 197 partners store and access personal data, like browsing data or unique identifiers, on your device. Selecting Accept All enables tracking technologies to support the purposes shown under we and our partners process data to provide. If trackers are disabled, some content and ads you see may not be as relevant to you. You can resurface this menu to change your choices or withdraw consent at any time by clicking the Cookie Preferences link on the bottom of the webpage .Your choices will have effect within our Website. For more details, refer to our Privacy Policy.
We and our vendors process data for the following purposes:
Use precise geolocation data. Actively scan device characteristics for identification. Store and/or access information on a device. Personalised advertising and content, advertising and content measurement, audience research and services development.
Cookies Preference Centre
We process your data to deliver content or advertisements and measure the delivery of such content or advertisements to extract insights about our website. We share this information with our partners on the basis of consent. You may exercise your right to consent, based on a specific purpose below or at a partner level in the link under each purpose. Some vendors may process your data based on their legitimate interests, which does not require your consent. You cannot object to tracking technologies placed to ensure security, prevent fraud, fix errors, or deliver and present advertising and content, and precise geolocation data and active scanning of device characteristics for identification may be used to support this purpose. This exception does not apply to targeted advertising. These choices will be signaled to our vendors participating in the Transparency and Consent Framework.
Manage Consent Preferences
Necessary Cookies
Always Active
These cookies are necessary for the website to function and cannot be switched off in our systems. They are usually only set in response to actions made by you which amount to a request for services, such as setting your privacy preferences, logging in or filling in forms. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not then work.
Targeting Cookies
These cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.
Functional Cookies
These cookies enable the website to provide enhanced functionality and personalisation. They may be set by us or by third party providers whose services we have added to our pages. If you do not allow these cookies then these services may not function properly.
Performance Cookies
These cookies allow us to count visits and traffic sources so we can measure and improve the performance of our site. They help us to know which pages are the most and least popular and see how visitors move around the site. All information these cookies collect is aggregated and therefore anonymous. If you do not allow these cookies we will not be able to monitor our performance.
Store and/or access information on a device 137 partners can use this purpose
Cookies, device or similar online identifiers (e.g. login-based identifiers, randomly assigned identifiers, network based identifiers) together with other information (e.g. browser type and information, language, screen size, supported technologies etc.) can be stored or read on your device to recognise it each time it connects to an app or to a website, for one or several of the purposes presented here.
Personalised advertising and content, advertising and content measurement, audience research and services development 177 partners can use this purpose
Use limited data to select advertising 139 partners can use this purpose
Advertising presented to you on this service can be based on limited data, such as the website or app you are using, your non-precise location, your device type or which content you are (or have been) interacting with (for example, to limit the number of times an ad is presented to you).
Create profiles for personalised advertising 101 partners can use this purpose
Information about your activity on this service (such as forms you submit, content you look at) can be stored and combined with other information about you (for example, information from your previous activity on this service and other websites or apps) or similar users. This is then used to build or improve a profile about you (that might include possible interests and personal aspects). Your profile can be used (also later) to present advertising that appears more relevant based on your possible interests by this and other entities.
Use profiles to select personalised advertising 102 partners can use this purpose
Advertising presented to you on this service can be based on your advertising profiles, which can reflect your activity on this service or other websites or apps (like the forms you submit, content you look at), possible interests and personal aspects.
Create profiles to personalise content 47 partners can use this purpose
Information about your activity on this service (for instance, forms you submit, non-advertising content you look at) can be stored and combined with other information about you (such as your previous activity on this service or other websites or apps) or similar users. This is then used to build or improve a profile about you (which might for example include possible interests and personal aspects). Your profile can be used (also later) to present content that appears more relevant based on your possible interests, such as by adapting the order in which content is shown to you, so that it is even easier for you to find content that matches your interests.
Use profiles to select personalised content 43 partners can use this purpose
Content presented to you on this service can be based on your content personalisation profiles, which can reflect your activity on this or other services (for instance, the forms you submit, content you look at), possible interests and personal aspects. This can for example be used to adapt the order in which content is shown to you, so that it is even easier for you to find (non-advertising) content that matches your interests.
Measure advertising performance 161 partners can use this purpose
Information regarding which advertising is presented to you and how you interact with it can be used to determine how well an advert has worked for you or other users and whether the goals of the advertising were reached. For instance, whether you saw an ad, whether you clicked on it, whether it led you to buy a product or visit a website, etc. This is very helpful to understand the relevance of advertising campaigns.
Measure content performance 73 partners can use this purpose
Information regarding which content is presented to you and how you interact with it can be used to determine whether the (non-advertising) content e.g. reached its intended audience and matched your interests. For instance, whether you read an article, watch a video, listen to a podcast or look at a product description, how long you spent on this service and the web pages you visit etc. This is very helpful to understand the relevance of (non-advertising) content that is shown to you.
Understand audiences through statistics or combinations of data from different sources 96 partners can use this purpose
Reports can be generated based on the combination of data sets (like user profiles, statistics, market research, analytics data) regarding your interactions and those of other users with advertising or (non-advertising) content to identify common characteristics (for instance, to determine which target audiences are more receptive to an ad campaign or to certain contents).
Develop and improve services 102 partners can use this purpose
Information about your activity on this service, such as your interaction with ads or content, can be very helpful to improve products and services and to build new products and services based on user interactions, the type of audience, etc. This specific purpose does not include the development or improvement of user profiles and identifiers.
Use limited data to select content 45 partners can use this purpose
Content presented to you on this service can be based on limited data, such as the website or app you are using, your non-precise location, your device type, or which content you are (or have been) interacting with (for example, to limit the number of times a video or an article is presented to you).
Use precise geolocation data 60 partners can use this special feature
With your acceptance, your precise location (within a radius of less than 500 metres) may be used in support of the purposes explained in this notice.
Actively scan device characteristics for identification 29 partners can use this special feature
With your acceptance, certain characteristics specific to your device might be requested and used to distinguish it from other devices (such as the installed fonts or plugins, the resolution of your screen) in support of the purposes explained in this notice.
Ensure security, prevent and detect fraud, and fix errors 112 partners can use this special purpose
Always Active
Your data can be used to monitor for and prevent unusual and possibly fraudulent activity (for example, regarding advertising, ad clicks by bots), and ensure systems and processes work properly and securely. It can also be used to correct any problems you, the publisher or the advertiser may encounter in the delivery of content and ads and in your interaction with them.
Deliver and present advertising and content 115 partners can use this special purpose
Always Active
Certain information (like an IP address or device capabilities) is used to ensure the technical compatibility of the content or advertising, and to facilitate the transmission of the content or ad to your device.
Match and combine data from other data sources 84 partners can use this feature
Always Active
Information about your activity on this service may be matched and combined with other information relating to you and originating from various sources (for instance your activity on a separate online service, your use of a loyalty card in-store, or your answers to a survey), in support of the purposes explained in this notice.
Link different devices 63 partners can use this feature
Always Active
In support of the purposes explained in this notice, your device might be considered as likely linked to other devices that belong to you or your household (for instance because you are logged in to the same service on both your phone and your computer, or because you may use the same Internet connection on both devices).
Identify devices based on information transmitted automatically 107 partners can use this feature
Always Active
Your device might be distinguished from other devices based on information it automatically sends when accessing the Internet (for instance, the IP address of your Internet connection or the type of browser you are using) in support of the purposes exposed in this notice.
Save and communicate privacy choices 90 partners can use this special purpose
Always Active
The choices you make regarding the purposes and entities listed in this notice are saved and made available to those entities in the form of digital signals (such as a string of characters). This is necessary in order to enable both this service and those entities to respect such choices.
have your say